Software

GREP, which stands for global regular expression print, is a sophisticated Linux/Unix tool that can serve many purposes, but one useful purpose on a dedicated server is its ability to search files and directories. With grep you can search within multiple files with relative ease. You can also parse printed …

Question: How can I easily perform incremental backups on my dedicated server? Answer: There are few tasks more important than backing up your server. Because of the nature of computers and especially the nature of the Internet, you are bound to have problems. They may or may not cause data …

For example, you can forward all messages sent to billing@yourdomain, sales, and marketing all to the same address: tom@yourdomain. That way, Tom will handle those email messages accordingly without having to check each of those accounts separately. Most web-based control panels have support for mail forwarding built into them. If, …

YUM is a package management system for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), CentOS, Fedora, and other Red Hat-based Linux operating systems. It is command-line driven and is an easy tool you can use to keep your server updated and install any new software you need. Normally, when you perform updates, …

As I have been reiterating all week, an open relay is a bad idea. If your mail server is left open, anyone can use your SMTP service to send mail, and spammers will use it. This can result in your server being blacklisted and extraneous use of system resources that …

When your server has become a haven for spammers, it is never a pleasant ordeal. Your server will probably be blacklisted, causing many of the emails you send to bounce back, and you may have serious connection problems due to the spammer using valuable system resources. There are a couple …

Question: How do I remote software that I installed from my Linux dedicated server? Answer: The answer to that question depends on how you installed the software in the first place. Once you establish how and where the software has been installed, you can determine how to remove it. 1. …

When MySQL works correctly, it can be a thing of beauty, but when something goes wrong, it can drive you mad. Here are a few things you can do to troubleshoot connection problems: 1. Make sure your username and password are correct. 2. Double-check the hostname. Although “localhost” works on …

Question: I have a new Linux dedicated server, and I have read a lot of documentation referring to packages. What are Linux packages? Answer: In Linux distributions, a “package” refers to a compressed file archive containing all of the files that come with a particular application. The files are usually …

As I mentioned in a previous MySQL post, knowing how to quickly perform database tasks from the command line is a good idea if you are a Linux system administrator. Sometimes, it is the easier way to get things done, especially if you are helping another user and need root …